This is a very cool article. There’s an application for the new iPhone (and iPod Touch) called Dynolicious. It can do a whole bunch of cool things using the iPhone’s accelerometer with your car like measuring acceleration and 0-60 time. Here’s more info on what it can do:
http://gizmodo.com/5030749/iphone-apps-we-like-dynolicious-car-performance-meter

Now, however, tests have shown that it is in fact very accurate:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-DFbJQbeSY[/youtube]
We recently reported on Dynolicious, the $13 app that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to meter your car’s performance, and mentioned a few positive impressions that surfaced in the app’s early days. Sure, the idea is appealing and makes theoretical sense, but I at least need vaguely scientific confirmation that this thing actually works well. It is in the spirit of vague science, then, that Garage419 takes Dynolicious out on the track and pitting it against the circuit’s clock as well as the popular G-Tech Pro accelerometer-based dynometer, generally regarded as the industry standard for consumer performance metering. Surprisingly, at less than one tenth of the G-Tech Pro’s retail price, Dynolicious eats it for lunch (Sorry for the obnoxious ads in the video, skip ahead for the results).

The biggest surprise here is that the accelerometer is so precisely calibrated and tuned that it can turn out accurate results, but that’s not the area in which the iPhone shines. The touch screen interface and large screen make viewing and interacting with the data much more pleasurable than on its comparatively low-tech competitor. The software is also a bit smarter than the G-Tech’s, which incorrectly identified some maneuvers, resetting the lap timers at inappropriate times.

Dynolicious isn’t the first example of a niche market re-purposing the iPhone’s tech, but it is among the most successful. Word is that it doesn’t quite stack up the the really pricey stuff, but I’m going to venture a guess that the $600 units don’t play Monkey Ball.
[via Gizmodo]